


Stunning

by EdilMayHampsen



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, Other, it has a plot- Kind, its just peter feeling things, no beta we hum like m'tendere, peter Nureyev character study QUESTION MARK?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29202666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdilMayHampsen/pseuds/EdilMayHampsen
Summary: The set is beautiful, a mixed-marvel of artistry, engineering and design. Rings to sit on the first and third section of each finger, a porcelain plate against the back of the hand. Gold fans up the elbows and comes together in a starburst of a collar, the crew keeps it in the dining hall for a while.A study of Peter Nureyev's relationship with the crew and with beauty.
Relationships: Aurinko Crime Family & Peter Nureyev, Buddy Aurinko & Peter Nureyev, Rita & Juno Steel & Peter Nureyev, others briefly- not enought to tag
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	Stunning

**Author's Note:**

> TWs for:  
> -swearing because i wrote it  
> -this one dude is a real creep-mobile.  
> -self-esteem issues/poor self talk  
> -lil' saddness, as a treat

The jewelry winds around Peter’s body in a confusing web of delicate everything. He hardly wants to move for fear something will snap, but stillness isn’t an option, because he is running. Peter knew vaguely that the set they came here to steal was measured for someone of his approximate height and weight, but not that he’d be donning it in a rush when they found no other way of moving it out the building.

Jet runs in front of Peter, not because Peter would be the better shield out of the two of them, but because their pursuers wouldn’t dare risk blasterfire shattering the most prized object in their master’s private museum. All their shots attempt to miss Pete in favor of Jet and go wide of the both of them. Not everyone can be as good as Juno. 

Jet takes a sharp left, Peter follows, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall of a shop front long closed for the night. He takes his own breath away. 

Peter stops in his tracks, “It’s stunning.” he says.

Jet turns back, making a split-second decision and throwing Peter over his shoulder, snapping him out of his reverie. 

“No, actually,” Jet says, “They are shooting to kill. Which is why it is essential we do not get distracted. 

Jet calls for the ruby.

~~~~~~

The set is beautiful, a mixed-marvel of artistry, engineering and design. Rings to sit on the first and third section of each finger, a porcelain plate against the back of the hand. Gold fans up the elbows and comes together in a starburst of a collar, layered with necklaces, and above that single gold choker. On the face, a porcelain mask and set of earrings shaped like vines of delicate blossoms. Gold and painted flowers ran over the whole body of the thing, tied together with highways of chains as delicate as silk. 

The chains link and weave together to accommodate the motion of the wearer, they get thicker down the legs. Two porcelain plates frame the hips, and then the chains lay flat to dip below the garments before reappearing in a gold garter, porcelain knee cap, shin plate, and another plate across the top of the foot. The least valuable part of the piece is the iron heel, made to be removed and replaced, so the dancer wearing the set could stomp as freely as they wish without causing it damage. 

The crew keeps it in the dining hall for a while. 

~~~~~

Peter stands in front of two mirrors. One digital and the other nothing more than aluminum and glass. On the digital mirror he pulls up an Image of himself not five minutes ago, before he’d washed the makeup off. In the mundane mirror, he simply examines himself. 

The vanity does not stem from age, exactly. The vanity stems from effectiveness and age happens to be a factor. But this is a good day. Peter is not looking for flaws. 

There’s a minute scar on his chin, hardly noticeable now and invisible under even a light coat of foundation. He got it when he was too young to know his age, when he tripped and fell and split the skin on a rock. He remembers crying, then, about how it was the worst pain he’d ever felt. The Peter in the mirror laughs at how trivial it was.

The yellow bruise on his cheek is from Juno, actually. During their sparring matches Juno always manages a gentle touch. Thievery and private investigation, though at odds with each other, shared most of the means to their separate ends. Both of them were well versed in not hurting the people they need. They simply need each other in a less professional and less altruistic way (because, despite what they are willing to admit, altruism haunts them like a bad smell). It wasn’t sparring when he got it. Juno gave Nureyev the bruise in bed. Not thrashing from a nightmare, Peter was used to those, but on a good night. A normal night. Juno had turned over too quickly and elbow met cheekbone. Soon after, lips met cheekbone in apology, but kisses don’t actually heal boo-boos. 

Peter prods the bruise, and when it stings, he smiles. 

Then his hands, shaking now because he’d opted to skip family dinner, brush the beginnings of lines under his eyes. Smoothe over crows feet and let go. Trace smile lines. Peter wonders briefly what new charm he can make out of this thing he has, a persona straddling the edge of youth and trying wildly, desperately, drunkenly, to hold on, hands slipping into pockets the whole spiral to rocket-bottom. 

Peter lifts his shirt and checks how well his plasma cutter scar from last month is healing. That wound was not a fun one. 

Juno doesn’t bother walking softly, not when he knows he’s welcome. The door shuts behind him and he hooks his chin over Nureyev’s shoulder, pressing flat against Nureyev’s back, his hands finding stomach in record time. Juno’s hands are cold. 

“How are you holding up, hun?” Juno asks, locking eyes with Nureyev, the breathing, aged version of Nureyev, in the mirror. 

“Just fine, actually.” 

Juno finds no lie in Nureyev’s tone because there isn’t a lie to find. 

“You look stunning,” Juno tells the real-Nureyev. His eyes slide briefly to the other one and, bored, return home. 

“I know,” Peter says, “Thank you.” 

~~~~~~

Peter was never a picky eater. First out of need to survive, and then out of the pure curiosity that eventually embeds itself into anyone who travels beyond their solar system. It wasn’t only for roles that he trained himself to enjoy things, though he didn’t know it at the time. The Peter now, the one who has some clue of the shape of his body when he relaxes, and grows less aware of the expression on his face and more aware of the emotion in his chest with every passing day, has decided he enjoys enjoying things. It’s a process he’s used to, acclimating himself to the artificial after-taste of salmon-flavored dusty crunchies. Every city, it seems, has its chemical to preserve flavor and destroy your liver. Born-and-bred hyperiaites will never taste it. Peter isn’t so lucky.

He and Rita sit side by side in total silence. It’s early in the morning, ship time. Early enough that, should Buddy come into the kitchen for a glass of water, both of them would be sent scrambling down the hall like children caught on a school night, onto to rendezvous in Rita’s room for the kind of trashy old drama streams that are best enjoyed in each other's company. Both of them have a knack for scarily, or hilariously, accurate insults when they feel relaxed enough to let them fall off the tongue. 

This isn’t one of those nights. They just watch the jewelry. It’s a light set of armor doing anything but it’s purpose, made to highlight every soft-bit and vulnerability. Peter wonders how it would be to wear something like that. Metaphorically. To wear a personality that highlights the rough and beautiful parts of himself with equal reverie. He wonders if that would be wearing nothing at all. He wonders if nudists may have had the right idea. That thought makes him laugh, shattering the silence and earning him a look from Rita. It isn’t a judging look, not by any standard, and the curiosity in her eyes is tired and half-hearted. It’s far more a look of acknowledgement. That  _ you are here and I am here and neither of us have to be _ . 

They mindlessly reach for a salmon crunchy at the same time, hands brushing. Rita jerks, bringing her pink-tipped fingers to her chest. “Mr.Ransom!” she gasps with an exaggerated scandal. 

Peter’s instinct to yes-and runs deeper in his body than water. He slides off of his chair and onto one knee in front of Rita, taking her hand and smearing pink dusty all over the both of them. 

“Rita there is something I must confess.” 

“What is it?” she asks, looking up and away.

“-- And I need you to know that this comes deeply from my heart, with every droplet of sincerity I have, so much so that if you reject me now I may never feel sincere again,” She looks at him from the corner of her eyes, holding his gaze with a love-struck look and a barely contained guffaw, “ Listen to me now when I say this. You are the only one, you will always be the only one, my Rita, who I can eat salmon-flavored dusry crunchies with at godforsaken hours.”

A gasp comes from the hall, and the two of them turn to see Juno, with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead, slumped against the doorframe, “Whenever before has betrayal run this deep,” he deadpans, “Oh no. Oh no. The devastation. Pete I knew I never should have trusted you.” 

“Juno this isn’t what it looks like.”

“Then what is it?” Rita stage-whispers, “What are we?” 

“Go! Run off with your new love. I knew that good things could not last in the...in the t-turbulent winds of our love, turned to storm.” 

Juno turns and storms off down the hall, Rita runs into Peter’s arms, but he stays staring wistfully at where Juno once was, until he reappears and wraps the both of them in a hug, shorting into Nureyev’s shoulder. All of them laugh.

“Care to join us for salmon crunchies, Juno?” Peter asks, when they’ve broken apart and gone back to sitting.

“If I had to slip one of those under my tongue to pay for passage into the underworld I think i’d just spend my eternity on the shores, thanks.” He grabs a bag of minor celery chips and sits himself between Rita and Peter, letting the bowl of crunchies rest on his lap. Both of them rest their heads on Juno’s shoulders.

“That’s quite an old story you’re referencing, Juno.”

“I know, you told it to me.” And Juno, turning away from their temporary art installation, tries to look at peter, but more so ends up bumping his chin into Peter’s forehead. Juno breathes there for a long moment before he whispers, “You’re just stunning like that.”

~~~~~~

Peter stands in front of three mirrors. The first, an image of himself not five minutes ago. before he washed off his makeup. The third, and image of himself, not five years ago. The 2nd, a despicable combination of glass and aluminum, mocking him.

Today is not a good day.

He finds the flaw in his chin and it does not rub away. He zooms into the alternate image of himself. He does not see the scar there. 

Peter pinches the somewhat deflated skin of his cheeks, prods his frown lines, presses the puffy skin under his eyes. 

He remembers the night his first gray streak appears in horrid, vivid detail. He had mumbled after Juno from the bed of their hotel room and Juno had not returned. Peter sat in that bed for a while, staring at the dark ceiling and not thinking. Feeling too empty for thoughts. His stomach had been what had pulled him out of bed. It turned as it always does when Peter feels he’s lost his steady ground, and he’d sought coffee. Instead, he found himself stumbling into the bathroom, still not thinking, just blearly. The white lights blinded his eyes before he saw himself. 

It must have been how Juno ran his fingers through Peter’s hair, displacing the strands from any of their normal styles, making them stick up. Just a single grey streak, thin as a needle. 

A logical version of Peter, one that tries to coax his pain out of him at any cost, so that he may smile brighter and look put together enough to be offered a place to sleep the night, and maybe a hot meal if he gets lucky, says that it was a coincidence. That he needs to get over himself. That tucking his fears away is the only way to survive the cut-throat streets of his hometown.

The fearful version of Peter, that wants to scramble to fix every last mistake like a constant game of whack-a-mole within himself, the one that equates validity with survival, says Juno couldn’t love a degrading soul. That he’s losing his touch. That this is the beginning of the end.

The version of Peter he is most days, the one he’s nearly certain he can call “me” feels pity for the ragged and tear streaked thing reflected in front of him. 

He doesn’t know who he is right now. He goes searching though his catalogue of faces in the fidget of his hands reaching for anything that might offer him relief from this, the symptoms of an aching chest and blurred vision that won’t stop dripping onto the floor despite how much he tries to turn it off. There is no relief in the soaps and lotions of their bathroom. There is no relief in Rex or Dahlia or Sha or Damian or Halbreese or any of them. There is no relief, so Peter resolves to wallow. He slides down to the floor, hugging his knees. He closes his eyes. He tries to breathe. It doesn’t work. 

Peter doesn’t know when Buddy came in on her soft feet, but time has passed and she’s there now, sitting on the floor, a selection of hand creams and lotions and soaps and powders spread put in a semi circle around her. One by one she opens them, sniffs curiously, seals them again and puts them aside. 

The ritual draws Peter’s attention. He finds himself merely sniffling as he watches. That one’s lavender, and there’s bergamot, and blue jade-fruit, that one there’s unscented— Buddy makes a face at the one, going to smell it twice, three times. It almost makes Peter laugh— Buddy looks down at the multitude of products around herself. She tsks.

“Darling I’ll never get through all of these at this rate. Why not just tell me which one you like the best and stop leaving your old captain guessing, hmm?” 

Peter manages a tight-lipped smile. Pointing to a green bottle up on the counter. Buddy stands to retrieve it, waiting until she’s sitting again to slowly unscrew the lid with the same fanfare as opening a small treasure. She takes a whiff, and her eyes go wide. Another, and she lets out a pleasant sigh.

“You have good tastes, I’ll give you that.” 

She passes the open bottle and he takes it, he smells it, a familiar brightness layered with something that might be sage and the darker side of citrus grown with a touch too much radiation to give it a feeling of danger. Peter looks back to the mirror. The past versions of him have faded to black screens with misuse, there is only him in the aluminum and glass. He regards himself there for a long while. He doesn't have any feelings towards what he sees. It has passed.

“I suppose I do, yes.”

Buddy rubs the lotion between her hands and smells her palm. “Simply stunning, I must say.” 

~~~~~~

The collection is old and quite remarkable. A dance-hall sized space, lined with shelves piled with old books, all prestinely cared for beyond the fray and rot they’d collected on their way to this particular owner. Vespa links her arms through Peter’s, they walk with their steps in time, backs both ramrod straight, dressed both modest and black, from ankle to turtleneck. They drift around the space like old friends that no longer need to communicate. That isn’t the case. Buddy speaks to both of them through their earpieces. Peter and Vespa may not trust each other, not completely, as may never be the case, but they both trust buddy Undyingly. That really is that it took for both of them to coexist. To know that not everything you can't trust will hurt you. 

Which is why they hold the set of Jewelry in their two unlinked arms, making sure not a piece of it touches the floor.

It feels oddly ceremonial in a way Peter's used to betraying, pulling debutantes into alcoves and kissing secrets out of their lips. Striking at the corners of formality until the whole thing shatters like a comms screen, making anyone who dares try to interact with it later regret it. 

Now, he and Vespa take careful steps and measure paces with the full knowledge they are being watched. This collector must have had their fair share of artifacts trading hands before they got to their final destination, and these instructions that follow now were given once and strictly, to be sure they aren't dealing with thieves-of-thieves.

“Take a right here, darlings. And do not speak.”

The person that sweeps from the stacks isn’t as old or as young as Peter had expected. Usually collections of this size are either life's work or soon-to-be-sold inheritances. He’s pleasantly surprised. 

This collector character is also in black. They walk with their hands crossed behind their back, Circling Peter and Vespa before stopping on Peter’s side.

“You,” they begin.

“Do not speak.” Buddy hisses.

Peter says nothing.

“You interest me. Would you like to know why you interest me, Peter Ransom?” They say the name as if it’s some threatening revelation, as if Peter’s been  _ caught _ . It’s almost enough to make him crack a smile. How wrong they are. “of course you want to know. This artifact was crafted for the head concubine of the first and only monarch or solar."

Another pause, as if this should be surprising. 

"I doubt you've heard of such a monarch," (Peter had heard) "they only ruled for a grand total of two days before their subsequent assassination by dark matters."

Peter may have met the person who landed the blow at a party. He wonders if they've kicked the bucket yet, and how the husband is doing.

"Their measurements are surprisingly close to yours, though my data on you is not conclusive."

That nearly makes peter falter out of pure discomfort. Vespa offers a small tug on his arm, and Buddy gives protective a 'hmm' through his earpiece

"And sure," the collector continues. "I have a well fitted mannequin to hang this up on, and the piece will look no less beautiful on that, but imagine a living specimen in my collection? I would pay you handsomely."

Buddy speaks up, "Turn around now. Slowly, and stop...you may speak, if you'd wish.” She sighs. “And Speak freely."

Peter and Vespa bow in practiced unison, placing the piece on soft carpet. Vespa stands and walks some ways away. Peter bows again he finds he quite dislikes the smile on this collector's face. 

Peter goes reaching for a personality now. It is not a shield, not a cage. But a tool. This smile is a cold and uncanny approximation of politeness. Peter bows again. "No thank you." He says, and only lingers long enough for gain the satisfaction of the collector’s smile sinking into a scowl.

He offers Vespa his arm and they make their way out of the collection.

"The gall of some people." Vespa snorts, "fucking stunning."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!   
> I don't have alternative titles for this one cause I started it at two AM a few weeks ago and finished it today cause why not. It's a shorty but I like it.  
> As always my tumblr is [@drumkonwords](drumkonwords.tumblr.com) where I sometimes scream about TPP but mostly scream incoherently and am always open to Qs , prompts, or requests.   
> You can check out more of my work on my profile but you can find my current favorite [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29023488) 8k words about the Aurinko crime family, healing by fighting, and hair-styling.  
> And as always, comments and Kudos are very appreciated.


End file.
